In the news today, research shows the high number of early deaths in Russia is mainly due to people drinking too much alcohol, particularly vodka. The study, in The Lancet, says 25% of Russian men die before they are 55. Shocking. One third of the population. Women are not exempt, but they drank less so mortality rates lower. Most of the early deaths are down to alcohol. What compels them to drink so much? Sounds like an addiction to me. I know—yesterday my topic was cigarette addiction and how the behavior can be linked right back to Neanderthal man. Perhaps alcohol could be grouped in the same mode. But I'm not a scientist—just a writer with an overactive imagination as you can see by the published books on the right of the page. The first in the futuristic series, Wind Over Troubled waters, features a group of characters who shelter in a cave after civilization has passed away. One of the most engaging novels I ever read was Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel, where early man contacts Neanderthal man. More on caves later. In Russia, causes of death include liver disease and alcohol poisoning. Once under the influence, people die in accidents or as a result of fighting. Researchers from the Russian Cancer Centre in Moscow, Oxford University in the UK and the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer, in France, tracked the drinking patterns of 151,000 adults in three Russian cities over up to 10 years in one of the largest studies of its kind in the country. During that time, 8,000 people in the study died. In previous studies focusing on the families of 49,000 people who had died, spouses were asked about their partners' drinking habits. The deaths can't have been peaceful or filled with happy memories. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev drastically cut vodka production and did not allow it to be sold before lunch-time. Alcohol consumption fell by around a quarter. Then, when communism collapsed, people started drinking more again and the overall death rates also rose.

www.thepunch.com.au

Most drinkers were smokers as well. Researchers say this added to the death rates. And here we have it. Smoking and drinking go together. In my mind, this links both addictive behaviors to the small, inherited part of the brain from Neanderthal man. Scroll down to see the facts in yesterday's post. In 2006, Russia brought in more stringent alcohol control measures, including raising taxes and restricting sales. Researchers say alcohol consumption has fallen by a third since then and the proportion of men dying before they reach 55 years old has fallen from 37% to 25%. What? The death rate was even higher at one point? How does Russian society cope with so few mature men? I picture homes in street after street full of widows, living out their days alone. In 2011 the World Health Organization reported that almost six million people across the globe died from tobacco use and 2.5 million from harmful use of alcohol each year. To reduce alcohol abuse, WHO recommends a number of measures including increasing excise taxes on alcoholic beverages, regulating availability of alcoholic beverages (including minimum legal purchase age), restricting exposure to marketing of alcoholic beverages through marketing regulations or comprehensive advertising bans, and treatment of alcohol use disorders and brief interventions for hazardous and harmful drinking. So many people have a social drink every evening. In the bible, even Jesus turned water into wine for the enjoyment of wedding guests. Alcohol isn't harmful in small quantities. Alcohol only becomes a problem when it fills every waking moment as something a person can't live without. I hesitate to blame Neanderthal. Yet I can't help wondering how this type of addiction could have been passed on. Did it start with early behavior to keep a male close to his mate and provide for his family? Perhaps he needed something to draw him back to his cave after he finished hunting. To sit in the smoky confines and drink a comforting concoction his female provided.

A major study in Nature journal shows gene types that influence disease in people today were picked up through interbreeding with Neanderthals. Genome studies reveal that our species (Homo sapiens) came into contact with Neanderthals after leaving Africa. They interbred, but in some couples, mating didn't produce offspring. Neanderthal passed on smoking addiction along with variants involved in type 2 diabetes, and Crohn's disease. Read the full story from BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25944817

www.reuters.com

The research team screened the genomes of 1,004 modern humans and identified regions bearing the Neanderthal versions of different genes. The surprise was they found a gene variant with a Neanderthal origin associated with a difficulty to quit smoking from. I couldn't find anything further on the news story about how this could have occurred. However, there is no suggestion our evolutionary cousins were puffing nicotine substances in their caves. Instead, the researchers suggest, this mutation may have more than one function. Not sure what this means. Perhaps the variant kept families close to their caves and drew the men back from hunting to support them. The modern effect of this marker on smoking behavior may be one impact among several. You might be able to think of other scenarios.

news.discovery.com

Some gene variants provided a rapid way for modern humans to adapt to the new cooler environments they encountered as they moved into Eurasia. When the populations met, Neanderthals had already adapted to these cooler conditions over several hundred thousand years. The stocky hunters once covered a range stretching from Britain to Siberia, but went extinct around 30,000 years ago at the time when Homo sapiens expanded from their African homeland. But, we need more information on why some people, my husband included, become addicted to smoking. It's now just a nicotine craving with him—he gets that through his plastic replacement tool supplied through UK's National Health. He still craves the other poisons and smoke associated with an actual cigarette.

Quote from the American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/questionsaboutsmokingtobaccoandhealth/questions-about-smoking-tobacco-and-health-is-tobacco-addictiveRegular use of tobacco products leads to addiction in many users. Nicotine is an addictive drug just like heroin and cocaine: 1. When taken in small amounts, nicotine creates pleasant feelings that make the smoker want to smoke more. It acts on the chemistry of the brain and central nervous system, affecting the smoker’s mood. Nicotine works very much like other addicting drugs, by flooding the brain’s reward circuits with dopamine (a chemical messenger). Nicotine also gives you a little bit of an adrenaline rush—not enough to notice, but enough to speed up your heart and raise your blood pressure. 2. Nicotine reaches the brain within seconds after taking a puff, and its effects start to wear off within a few minutes. This is what most often leads the smoker to light up again. If the smoker doesn’t smoke again soon, withdrawal symptoms start and get worse over time. 3. The typical smoker takes about 10 puffs from each cigarette. A person smoking a pack per day gets about 200 “hits” of nicotine each day. 4. Smokers usually become dependent on nicotine and suffer physical and emotional (mental or psychological) withdrawal symptoms when they stop smoking. These symptoms include irritability, nervousness, headaches, and trouble sleeping. The true marker for addiction, though, is that people still smoke even though they know smoking is bad for them—affecting their lives, their health, and their families in unhealthy ways. Most people who smoke want to quit.

I'm not going to pass on the information about Neanderthal man's variant gene. He doesn't need an extra excuse for his addiction. Trouble is—he'll probably read it in his newspaper.

Researchers have discovered a new brain region that appears to help humans identify whether they have made bad decisions. See full BBC story here. Scans failed to find any comparable region in monkeys, suggesting the area is exclusive to humans. #Picture: Adam and Eve, 1526. Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London, oil on panel. Is this neural tissue a conscience? The special part inside a human which links him to the creator? But wait. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth. Eve didn't choose wisely and ate the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve blamed the goodness of the tree, and Adam blamed her for giving the fruit to him. When God punishes all three—the serpent, Eve, and Adam— for disobeying his command, another meaning of this very first story in the Bible emerges. We cannot go through life blaming others for our own behavior.

#Ceiling: The Adam and Eve story from the fantastic ceiling mosaic in the Baptistry of Florence, Italy. I'm annoyed at Adam for passing the blame to his wife. He should show some form of loyalty to the only other person of his kind on Earth. Perhaps that part of his brain hadn't developed yet. Definition: A person who feels loyalty to a nation, cause, or person feels a sense of allegiance, commitment, dedication toward them. I admire a person who stands beside someone they believe in. I'm reading a novel at the moment about a woman who bonds with a fragile man in her care and determines to find out what went wrong with his life. I'm half way through and really enjoying ‘Sinking Ships’ by Michelle Knowldon: USA: http://www.amazon.com/Sinking-Ships-Abishags-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00H8CLEHG UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinking-Ships-Abishags-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00H8CLEHG But, back to the news story about the discovery in the brain. The ball of neural tissue, compared to the size and shape of a large Brussels sprout, seems to be crucial for the kind of flexible thought that allows us to consider switching to a more promising course of action. I liken this to the little voice inside, which I put down to God or an angelic presence. While other brain parts keep track of how our decisions—good or bad—are working for us, the new structure is more outward-looking, and mulls over what we might have done instead. Great concept.

Hong Kong has begun culling 20,000 chickens imported from mainland China after the H7N9 bird flu virus was found in poultry at the wholesale market. The new scare comes as China prepares to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday. Sales of live chickens traditionally rise ahead of the holiday period when hundreds of millions of people travel across the country to spend time with relatives. The Hong Kong government ordered all chickens at the territory's only wholesale poultry market to be destroyed, and has banned the import of live chickens from the mainland for three weeks. The Cheung Sha Wan market will be closed for 21 days for disinfection and local farms would suspend sending chickens to the wholesale market. Shanghai will also halt live poultry trading from 31 January for three months. The virus H7N9 made the jump from domestic chickens and ducks to infecting Chinese people in April, 2013, after which 2 people died.

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In mainland China, where most of the cases in 2014 have been, state media said live poultry trading had been halted in three cities in Zhejiang province, where 12 people have died from H7N9 this month. According to the World Health Organization, cases of human H7N9 infection have been reported so far in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Most of those infected reported contact with live poultry, and information so far did not support sustained human-to-human transmission, the WHO said. What does this mean to people living in the UK or USA? Unfortunately, flu, along with any unwanted disease, can travel via an airplane from overseas visitors. We have to rely on the authorities catching the virus before it slips into our society. In humans, symptoms include fever sore throats, aching limbs and coughing. This sounds like a regular flu or bad cold.

Source: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=53028 There are many questions about bird flu that remain unanswered and are under investigation. It is known that some forms of bird flu viruses, such as H5N1, are more highly pathogenic (cause more serious illness) than others, yet the reasons for these differences are unclear. Human and bird influenza viruses have a similar structure but differ in the composition of proteins on their external surfaces. Because influenza viruses have the capacity to mutate, or undergo changes in their surface proteins, scientists are concerned that the bird flu viruses may eventually change into forms of the virus that are able to infect humans more easily.

In the meantime, I'll ensure I wash my hands thoroughly as soon as I return home from any outing. It's amazing how many different surfaces we touch in our travels. Door handles, supermarket trolleys, even food stacked on shelves could harbor unseen germs. This is a sensible precaution to take, even in normal circumstances.

In the latest news from Spain, a discovery surprised scientists when genetic tests revealed that a hunter-gatherer who lived 7,000 years ago had the unusual combination of dark skin, rather than fair, dark hair and blue eyes. The research, led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain, is published in the journal Nature. The lead author suggested that the lighter skin color evolved much later than researchers had previously assumed for ancient people. Found in 2006, the two hunter-gatherer skeletons lay undisturbed in a cave in the mountains of north-west Spain. The cool, dark conditions meant the remains were remarkably well preserved. Scientists were able to extract DNA from a tooth of one of the ancient men and sequence his genome. The team found that the early European was most closely genetically related to people in Sweden and Finland. His genes revealed the dark skin and blue eyes. Up till then, scientists thought the first Europeans became fair soon after they left Africa and moved to the continent about 45,000 years ago. But after settling in Europe and adjusting to the cooler conditions for 40,000 years, he still had dark skin.

I'd love to know when the skin changed. A period of 7,000 years is not long compared to mankind's extended evolution on Earth. So much for mixing the races. We're merged already—our skin simply adjusting to the climatic conditions. It certainly knocks the racists' theory of superiority. Sitting at a desk all day, my skin needs more vitamin D. So I'll get paler, while the dark-skinned inhabitants of England will gradually become paler too. Fascinating. There's something compelling about an image of a dark-haired woman with blue eyes. Not just because I had the same characteristics in my youth either. Many people have expressed the same opinion. My heroine in the novel Still Rock Water and the sequel Tidal Surge looked the same. Long dark hair, olive skin and piercing blue eyes, drawing you in to her soul.

Hundreds of children and young people in England and Wales were detained under the Mental Health Act and locked in police cells because officers did not have anywhere else to take them. Read the full story on BBC news. I find this incomprehensible. How could law officers think they were doing the right thing? Children shouldn't spend time in prison. What had they done to deserve this treatment? Children with mental illness live a difficult enough life without finding themselves behind bars with nobody to turn to. Where are their parents? Surely they would do everything they could to prevent their child being harmed this way.

www.nbcnews.com

Radio 4's the World This Weekend discovered that 305 children (under 18) were detained during the first 11 months of 2013. Some were held for more than 24 hours, according to data released under Freedom of Information laws. Under the Mental Health Act, police have the power to take people they suspect of being mentally disturbed and who could be a danger to themselves or others to a place of safety to be assessed by a doctor. This detention may only last up to 72 hours. In the case of children, this could mean an adolescent psychiatric unit or a children's home. Places of safety generally encompass a hospital, care home or any other suitable place. In exceptional circumstances, it may also be a police station.

anthromentalhealth.wordpress.com

I don't understand how UK police officers pick a child from those on the streets, decide they need assessment and then lock them in a cell. I found this website: Mental illness in children. Knowing the signs, click here. Last year Fox News reported that up to 20 percent of children in the United States suffer from a mental disorder and the count is rising. I'd never heard about this until I read the news article. Society needs to work out what to do for their mentally ill children. The best thing for them is to remain at home, cared for by family. One of my online friends, Alana is doing just that. Link: http://ramblinwitham.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/autism-and-dealing-with-uncertainty.html

A new genetically modified purple tomato is closer to being offered for sale. Although the research was developed in Britain, Canada has produced the purple tomatoes with first 1,200 liters of juice ready for shipping back to Britain. The aim is to use the tomato juice in research. The new tomatoes could improve the nutritional value of ketchup and pizza topping. Their dark pigment is intended to give tomatoes the health benefits found in fruit such as blueberries. The purple pigment is the result of the transfer of a gene from a snapdragon plant—the modification triggers a process within the tomato plant allowing the anthocyanin to develop. That sounds scary—the transfer of genes. What if they somehow jump into humans? Scientists scoff at the irrational fear. They aim to conduct a wide range of tests. Earlier studies show benefits as an anti-inflammatory and in slowing cancers in mice. Now, they want to test if the anthocyanin has positive effects on humans.

www.thesun.co.uk

A key question is whether the health benefits will influence public opinion. Researchers in the UK hope that the purple tomato juice will have a good chance of being approved for sale to consumers in North America in as little as two years' time. In the last 20 years, 28 countries have cultivated them on a commercial scale, and many hundreds of millions of people now safely eat GM food on a regular basis without being aware of how their food is produced. No person or animal has died or fallen ill directly as a result of eating GM food. Contrary to the pro-organic lobby's claims, it is actually more dangerous to eat organic food. In 2011, 53 people in Germany died from eating organic beansprouts. I'd rather eat natural foods—foods that are grown in or on the Earth, do no harm to the environment, and have been around since the time of our ancestors. However, I've got to admit that if we opposed everything unnatural we wouldn’t practice medicine for a start. We'd just shrug and give in to nature. Then I, for one, wouldn't be here. Genetically modified food has slipped into the food chain in the U.S. I'd be interested to find out how many foods we are eating without knowing they contained a genetically modified ingredient.

www.ag.hdsu.edu

Experts say 60% to 70% of processed foods on U.S. grocery shelves have genetically modified ingredients. The most common are soybeans, maize, cotton, and rapeseed oil. That means many foods made in the U.S. containing field corn or high-fructose corn syrup. These include many breakfast cereals, snack foods, and soda. Foods made with soybeans (including some baby foods) or cottonseed and canola oils could contain genetically modified ingredients. The U.S. government's position: Genetically engineered crops are safe, resist disease better, and can provide much-needed food in starving nations.The EU position: Keep it out. We prefer organic, which is much healthier. The risk of genetically modified foods to health and the environment outweigh the benefits. Only the multinational companies will benefit, dominating the world food supply and squeezing out traditional farmers.

www.perham.com

At the moment, the US is the largest producer of genetically modified crops. Many countries have followed including Argentina, Canada, China, Australia, India, and Mexico. The term genetically modified food (also known as biotech or genetically engineered food) refers to crop plants that have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits, such as resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content. Experts say this science, like any other, has no guarantees. Risks include: 1. Introducing allergens and toxins to food 2. Accidental contamination between genetically modified and non-genetically modified foods 3. Antibiotic resistance 4. Adversely changing the nutrient content of a crop 5. Creation of "super" weeds and other environmental risks GMOs have not introduced any unique allergens or toxins into the food supply. All GM crops are tested against a database of all known allergens before commercialization and any crop found containing new allergens is not approved or marketed. When we look at the subject logically, there is no credible evidence that GMOs pose any unique threat to the environment or the public’s health. So, who's going to volunteer for test-drinking purple tomato juice?

Announced on the news today, the Forth Bridge has become the UK government's latest nomination for World Heritage site status. The railway bridge, which connects Edinburgh with Fife in a span more than a mile and a half long, will be evaluated by Unesco over an 18-month period, with a decision due in 2015. The reason for the nomination of the Forth Bridge is because it was the first major British construction to be made of steel. Perhaps people in the future will be amazed at the earliest example of this kind. I picture citizens flying around in private crafts, without the need for gravity-fixed modes of transport. In the meantime, tourists will visit the area, thereby helping the economy. If successful, the bridge would join the likes of the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and the Grand Canyon on the existing list of UNESCO sites. The World Heritage List includes 981 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the Committee considers to have outstanding universal value.

Scara Brae - Scotland

The UK currently has 28 World Heritage sites, five of which are in Scotland. 1. St. Kilda - a small, out-lying archipelago of Hebridean islands 2. Edinburgh Old and New Towns 3. The Heart of Neolithic Orkney, which includes Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, Skara Brae, the Standing Stones of Stenness and other nearby sites 4. New Lanark - a restored 18th Century industrial cotton mill village in South Lanarkshire 5. The Antonine Wall - a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland The way ancient societies lived fascinates me. Television programs about Scara Brae, for example, explore the way ancient people lived. They turn out to be remarkably similar to modern man—living in a central (room built under the earth), which contained the fire and oven, shelves, and bed (rooms) included in the walls. Maybe they sat around their hearth, eating porridge the way I do. Among other UK sites are: Stonehenge, the Jurassic Coast, the Antonine Wall, and the more recent Tower of London. Some of the USA World Heritage sites consist of natural beauty—the Everglades, Yosemite & Yellowstone National Parks. I'm glad UNESCO is dedicated to preserving nearly 1,000 of the world's precious sites for the future.

With about two in every three adults in the UK classed as overweight or obese, we need to consider ways to overcome the escalating global problem. Obesity has grown to about one billion in the developing world since 1980. It's obvious that people will gain weight if they consume more calories in food than they burn off. However, it's difficult to eat less when your body cries out like a baby demanding food. Perhaps there's another way to use calories. In the news today, Dutch researchers suggest that using central heating may be contributing to our ballooning waistlines. Although higher temperatures in homes, offices and hospitals provide more comfort, bodies switch off. They no longer need to burn extra calories to keep warm. A Maastricht University Medical Centre group says 19C (66F) is sufficient to provide the right balance.

www.huffingtonpost.com

In winter, people spend 90% of their time indoors. When we heat our environment for maximum comfort, the energy balance is shifted towards weight gain. A drop in temperature would help burn off some calories. Authorities suggest spending more time outside. A walk or a run in the fresh air would work wonders. To balance that, studies suggest that in cold indoor temperatures would increase the likelihood of a stroke, apart from the winter mortality effect. So beware if you're at risk. The University of Stirling used research from 100,000 homes in England. People in houses heated above 23C tended to be slightly thinner, because at this point the body needed to lose heat, and sweating used up energy. Higher temperatures also lowered appetite and the amount of food being consumed. Perhaps we should keep the thermostat turned up high—if we could afford the increased charges. A researcher from the UK's National Obesity Forum said that a cold environment switches on brown fat deposits, which are said to generate 300 times more heat than any organ in the body. This is the no-cost way to achieve a slim waist.

listverse.com

When we're born, we have an abundance of brown fat in our bodies, wrapped round the central organs to keep us warm, to help us adapt to life outside the womb. The brown fat content of our bodies decreases as we age. Scientists have discovered that this type of fat is a good thing because it produces lots of heat by burning calories. Unlike white fat, which clings to our hips and expands our ageing waistlines, brown fat keeps the weight off. Studies show that brown fat is the body's natural thermal resource. The heat kept us warm as babies and is still capable of that job now. The bonus would be losing weight. However, severe cold weather can have drastic effects on older people with existing health problems. People aged over 65 are 7 times more likely to be admitted to hospital as a result of low temperatures compared with those aged 18 to 44.

chronicfatigue.about.com

Also, many health problems have a hidden link to the cold, which do not manifest symptoms until after the severe weather has passed. These conditions lead to strokes, hypothermia or respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis or pneumonia which are directly caused by the impact of the cold. Okay. I admit I'm over 70 years with unrealistic expectations of my body image. I want my 18 inch waistline back! But as soon as my heating cuts off, I start to fidget. My fingers and legs feel the cold first. As my fingers cool down, they stiffen and turn icy. Although I want my brown fat to power up, I'm not sure I'm ready to venture into the 19C (66F) halfway-house between warm and cold. How about you?

An ongoing drought has been blamed for the largest freshwater lake in China, which covers an expanse twice the size of London, to dry up. The lake area normally fluctuates dramatically between the wet and dry seasons, but in recent years the size of the lake has been decreasing overall. Global warming? Poyang Lake in rural China's Jiangxi province is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions. But the combination of drought and a new water storage facility upstream has caused water levels to drop to dangerously low levels. Ah, the world's biggest dam at the Three Gorges reservoir is the cause rather than the global environment.

history.cultural-china.com

Beijing News reported earlier this month, an ancient stone bridge appeared on the cracked earth, hidden underneath the lake's water for 400 years. The 2,930-metre-long granite bridge, dating to AD1631, was one of around 1,000 similar stone bridges constructed during the Ming dynasty. Even as far back as 2011, conservation groups voiced opposition to government plan of building the reservoir. Now, the combination of the dammed water and the drought has affected the lake's wetland vegetation growth and taken a toll on its ecology. Apart from devastating the life of fish and birds, people in the region face drinking water shortages and the local fishing industry has been decimated. Because of the lack of fish, there is no food for the half a million migrating birds which usually break their journey there. The lake is fed by five rivers and connects to the lower reaches of the Yangtze. Lake waters flow into the area during dry seasons, while in the rainy seasons Poyang is replenished with floods.

www.china.org.cn

The yearly changes in water level also help maintain one of the most important wetlands in the world. Poyang's dynamic ecosystem provides a unique and critical habitat for a variety of waterbirds, many of which are endangered species. The government has recently flown in food drops for birds. The International Crane Foundation reports that about 98 percent of the world's Siberian cranes depend on the lake for survival each winter. The area is also home to more than 120 species of fish and 300 species of birds. In another part of the world, the Brazilian Government plans to build the Belo Monte Dam in the Amazon rainforest. A Brazilian judge has ordered that work on the controversial dam be halted on grounds that environmental commitments were not met. Stay tuned for further developments. I read somewhere about an ancient king's tomb inscription while speak about changing the course of a river. I can't find it now to give you the proper quote, but it announced proudly that the king didn't divert the flow of any mighty rivers. Perhaps he understood the ramifications, even then. Why don't authorities consider the damage they might be doing now? I leave you with a rather beautiful inscription on the tomb of the eminent philosopher Cleobulus (c 600 B.C.), the author of songs and riddles, making some 3000 lines in all. "I am a maiden of bronze and I rest upon Midas's tomb. So long as water shall flow and tall trees grow, and the sun shall rise and shine, and the bright moon, and rivers shall run and the sea wash the shore, here abiding on his tear-sprinkled tomb I shall tell the passers-by --- Midas is buried here."